


Personal Reminder

by regionalatliz



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: Angst, Grief/Mourning, Insomnia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:47:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27789247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regionalatliz/pseuds/regionalatliz
Summary: It's the night after Neil died and Todd can't sleep.
Relationships: Todd Anderson & Neil Perry, Todd Anderson/Neil Perry
Kudos: 22





	Personal Reminder

**Author's Note:**

> This has probably been done before so I genuinely apologize if it has. Shoutout to my twitter buddies you might accuse me of causing you pain for this :). Me? Choose violence? Never.
> 
> General warning for grief and Todd's stream of consciousness. I apologize for any pronoun reference errors this might be a little confusing bc I've never posted on here before and i'm assuming you can't italicize so lol GOOD LUCK READING. Also ignore the fact that this note is poorly written I promise the fic will be better.

Todd is convinced he will never sleep again. He is sure of it, because, presently, he is finding sleeping on his right side and his back tremendously uncomfortable. And while his body aches for him to reposition himself to his left side, he cannot bear to see the empty bed across from him. He cannot bear to feel that squeezing sensation in his chest. To feel his throat close up and his stomach start to churn until his eyes go blurry and wet and he desperately wants to scream into the void. To call out to him. 

Todd has to refer to the boy—now presumably the spirit— as HIM because if he so much as thinks of the letter ‘n’ the feeling comes flooding back and once again he thinks about sprinting away from the phantom that is squeezing at his chest. Was it Neil—no, God, was it he who manifested as the phantom squeezing at Todd’s chest? Was it revenge? For not calling out to him as Mr. Perry drove off? For not running out in front of the moving car to stop the miserable man? For not being assertive enough while convincing him not to audition for that damned play?

Todd flips from his right side to his back, training his eyes on the ceiling. He wants to close them (you need to in order to fall asleep) but when he does, all he can see is him. His awful glittering eyes and his stupid wonderful grin. The sculpt of his face and the tilt of his head whenever he’d lean in to tell Todd something privately. The look on his face as the car drove off. The awful look on his face as the car drove off. That look and the stirring within Todd that came with it. 

Todd’s no psychic, but he thinks he should’ve known what would happen. He should’ve known by the look on his face. By the way he’d rapidly changed once Mr. Perry paid him a visit two nights ago. The look on his face when he came down to dinner. The look on his horrid, beautiful, suffering face. He was hurting and Todd had barely even noticed. Todd needed him so badly that he hadn’t thought about it being the other way around. 

Todd thinks it’s dumb for him to think he needed him. Todd is now convinced that in his mind, Todd was just another friend. He was an actor after all. An actor who wanted the quiet kid’s silence to stop being so deafening. But it feels awful to think that their time together was inauthentic. It couldn’t have been. Not with the way Neil—HE—would look at Todd. No one just looks at someone like that. They couldn’t. Not if they didn’t care. That’d be inhumane.

Todd flips to his left side, forgetting momentarily why he wouldn’t in the first place. He regrets it immediately. There it goes. The phantom in his chest is squeezing. Todd springs to a sitting position, the bed creaking under him. He claws at his chest through his tee shirt, trying to breathe, but his throat is already closing up. He feels ill. He is convinced he is going to be sick. He scrambles off his bed, tripping over himself in the darkness, until finally there is a wetness on his cheeks. He crumples to the floor, heaving out a sob. Then another. He hugs his knees, ignoring the pain resulting from the way his shoulder digs into the rigid ground. His hands find his hair, weaving his fingers through and tugging desperately. He tries great difficulty to silence his cries. He tries to stop himself from shaking so terribly. He tries to stop, because if he can’t, he’s certain he’ll drown in his tears. 

Todd had never imagined he’d experience this kind of loss. How could he? Before this year he’d never had a true friend. Before this year, he never had a family. But Todd always thought that a loss of this magnitude would be accompanied by days of total shock and denial. Todd is not in denial. Todd wishes he were in denial. But the past three or so months the bed across from him has been occupied and its emptiness tonight weighs five million tons. The lack of his presence is overwhelming. Everything Todd had accomplished the past few months had gone hand in hand with the presence of him. Now he is not here and Todd is convinced everything he had overcome will reverse if he doesn’t see his face again soon. 

Todd would really appreciate it if he could see his face again soon. Even just one last time. One last genuine smile. The one he saw on his face just last night. But that smile was contaminated by the last expression Todd ever saw on his face. That awful look on his face as Mr. Perry drove off. 

Todd swears to himself, slamming his fist into the floor. He stands himself up, albeit shakily. He is looking at the bed. At Neil’s empty bed. Neil is not there and he is never going to be there again and Todd can’t stand it. Todd regretted almost everything he ever did, that’s why he was prone to do so little. And Todd regretted almost everything he ever didn’t do. And Todd is now convinced that if he just once had spoken up as impatient adults were keen on demanding—if he had just told Neil fucking Perry how fiercely he loved him, how much he appreciated him and needed him, maybe that fucking bed wouldn’t be so empty. 

Todd finds himself hovering over Neil’s desk. It is still full of his belongings. He is meant to pack them up for the Perrys tomorrow. He wishes he didn’t have to. He wasn’t ready to give up all the objects that Neil had so recently touched. They’d be stored in an attic, or thrown away, and it broke Todd’s heart to imagine that they’d all go to waste. And Todd can see Neil’s journal lying between the piles of notebooks and textbooks. Todd only saw him write in it on rare occasions, so he was certain there was nothing special in there other than personal reminders or summaries of his days. But he reaches for it nonetheless, opening aimlessly to a page, squinting through the darkness and just barely making out that his name was written there. The page was dated as Todd’s birthdate. 

Todd’s heart is pounding now. No, no it’s the squeezing again. Because, as Todd suspected, it was a personal reminder. A reminder for Todd’s birthday, and a note to get him a gift next year that he genuinely deserves. Then a scribble about how he deserved the world, but Neil would have to go smaller than that because that is just far too expensive for a jobless teenage boy. 

Todd is certain, as his throat closes up again, that he will never sleep again.


End file.
